Creationism in Connecticut
Mike Zimmerman, founder of the Clergy Letter Project, has a post on HuffPo calling attention to a situation in a public school district in Connecticut where a new creationist school board member, Chester Harris, met with science teachers. In the Hartford Courant newspaper article on Harris is quoted as saying
“I sort of got stuck on one thing with [the science teachers], which was basically the teaching of evolution in the schools and how it tends to ride roughshod over the fact that various religions – Christian, Hebrew, Muslim – hold a theistic world view,” Harris said one morning during a break from his job driving a school van. “Evolution is basically an assumption that there is no God.”
Right. Just what Connecticut needs: A school bus driver leaning on science teachers about evolution in aid of the Abrahamic religions.
And a school administrator weighed in with the usual spinelessness of such apparatchiks:
Charles J. Macunas, principal of Haddam-Killingworth High School, attended the meeting and characterized it as “very pleasant, not the least bit adversarial.”
“As a new board member, he was just trying to get a handle on content that’s taught in an area he’s very passionate about,” Macunas said.
Sounds like the brave superintendent of the Dover Area School District.
Disco ‘Tute spokesweasel Casy Luskin weighed in, too:
“People should weigh the evidence and draw their own conclusions,” said Casey Luskin, a policy analyst with the institute. “We’re talking about one of the most foundational questions of humanity: Where did we come from? There are credible scientists that challenge Darwinism. It is unconscionable to censor those views from students in the classroom.”
Incidentally, the Disco ‘Tute is described as “…a think tank in Seattle that funds research into alternative theories of human origin,…”. Sure it does.
The Disco Dancers had better get a leash on Harris, though. He is quoted as saying
“I’m not going to be fighting for the overthrow of any one way of doing things because we’ve gone past that,” he said. “It’s time for balance. … And I just want to be there so there’s a voice that says there’s room for all of us.”
“Balance”? Someone should refer Harris to Edwards v. Aguillard for some legal background on that “balanced treatment” idea. Between his listing of the Abrahamic religions as part of his talk with science teachers and his “balance” comments, he’s already blown the gaff. Lenny Flank’s rule still holds.